Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Familiar

As I sit here in Tulsa, OK I am flooded with 4 years of memories. Yesterday, I spent the day in Dallas. It was weird to think that I've been away for 2 months and been able to put away the thoughts of my empty house, and the memories that lie within it. 15 years of my life have been lived in that house with my family. I've spent so much of the last two months trying to force thoughts of my house, my home, away. I've been focusing on my new house and the responsibilities I have in my new life.

As the plane came into Dallas, I saw the familiar cityscape that I love so much. The Dallas skyline will always have that affect on me, but as I started thinking about all of the other times I've flown home and seen the light bouncing off of those buildings, I remembered that this one would be different. My home is different. After a wonderful day with my aunt and brother, I was reminded again of why my home is so important. People have this obsession with not holding on to material possessions, but as I walk through the empty rooms of my home, those possessions are what give me peace. They inspire my memories and connect me with a time that is no longer here. Being at home reminded me of all the people that I am serving this year and that some of this lost every material possession they had, and they have learned to live their memories through another avenue. I, on the other hand, have only these possession to unlock the memories of my life.

At the end of the day in Dallas, I headed to the airport and began the second phase of my journey back to the familiar. As my plane came into Tulsa I was hit with a different kind of excitement. The excitement of seeing my friends in Tulsa and the familiar campus where I did so much growing up throughout my 4 years here. I think back to my first day on campus and how I felt, how excited I was to finally be in college, and how adult I felt about living on my own so far from home.

This morning I got up to run and about 5 minutes in, I stopped and began to walk and look around the campus that I called home for 4 years. So many things have been built since I began my time here, but so many other things remain the same. The familiar buildings and trees brought my mind to all of the things I've done here, the people I've met, the events in my life that led me to who I am today. As I continue my journey through the unknown in New Orleans, I am comforted by the thought of my freshman year at Tulsa. Everything was so unfamiliar, I missed home, and I missed the things that kept me grounded. I missed the familiar. Those feeling of my freshman self were, over the course of 4 years, changed into the beautiful memories of my college experience. So, when I feel as though I will never belong in New Orleans, that people will never fully accept my sometimes-hard-to-handle personality, I am reminded that this is not the first time I've started over.